“Sean Mark’s Pound and Pasolini: Poetics of Crisis expounds incisively on Pasolini’s interview of Pound in 1967 to align two poets from opposite political camps, thus exposing the complex tension between poetry and ideology in both authors’ work. Mark’s acute and sophisticated readings result in a significant revision to our understanding of Pound’s and Pasolini’s respective poetics and places in contemporary culture. This is a distinguished and important book.” (Alessia Ricciardi, Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature and Director of Comparative Literary Studies, Northwestern University, USA)

“As Sean Mark’s magistral comparative study brings together the antithetical poles of 20th-century poetry, it illuminates both corpuses: the later Pound turns into a Pasolini character, and the poetic myth he provided allows Pasolini to reshape his religious communism. Pound and Pasolini kept their faith in human creativity and redemption and thus remain true ‘educators,’ their dialogue a source of inspiration in times of crisis.” (Jean-Michel Rabaté, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania, USA)

“Sean Mark’s fascinating study of Pound and Pasolini ranges from their actual contacts – most notably Pasolini’s 1967 interview with Pound – to detailed consideration of their contrasting aesthetic and political approaches, culminating in unexpected parallels in the methodology of the fragmentary and late work in The Cantos and Petrolio. Mark adds new dimensions to our understanding of both the Italian Pound and the American Pasolini, and sets an example of how contemporary comparative scholarship can work.” (David Ayers, Professor of Modernism and Critical Theory, University of Kent, UK)